ELECTRICITY CONDUCTION
Electricity as a physical substance that travels through conductive materials — water, metal, chains of objects, wet surfaces — enabling both hazards and puzzle solutions.
- SOLO-DEV COST MEDIUM
- TIMING REAL-TIME
- COMMON IN ACTION-ADVENTURE · CRPG · IMMERSIVE-SIM · PUZZLE
Breath of the Wild is the showcase: shock arrows in rain, metal weapons as conductors, and electricity chaining through wet enemies made lightning a systemic toy rather than a damage type. Divinity: Original Sin 2 electrifies blood and water pools into crowd-control zones, and Zelda-like puzzle design routes current through movable metal blocks to open doors. Designers simulate conduction because it multiplies content for free: one rule (electricity spreads through conductors) interacts with weather, surfaces, materials, and enemy placement to generate emergent tactics the designer never scripted. It also teaches through physics intuition — players already know water conducts. Key decisions: which materials conduct (and how visibly that's communicated), whether conduction is instant or propagates over time, and whether the player's own gear makes them vulnerable (BOTW's metal weapons in thunderstorms). Pitfall: conduction rules that apply to enemies but not the player (or vice versa) break the systemic promise — the magic is symmetry, and exceptions read as bugs.